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Public meeting on mosque site plan changed to April 13

Published 9:16 am, Thursday, April 7, 2011

Due to a scheduling problem, the public meeting for the Islamic Society of Midland’s mosque site plan review, originally scheduled for April 18, has been moved to Wednesday, April 13, at the Lincoln Township Hall.

The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. Earlier this year, the Islamic Society gained, by a 3 to 2 vote, approval from the Lincoln Township Planning Commission for a special land use permit to build a religious center on a five acre portion of a 93 acre parcel located on the corner of Sanford Road and Stark Road, just outside the Midland city limits.

At this earlier public hearing, one person spoke in favor of the project and three people, citing concerns about additional traffic, noise and possible nuisances from the facility’s lights, opposed the plan, township records indicate.

Kathy Kemp, who lives directly across the street on Stark Road from the proposed mosque site, is one of the neighboring residents who attended the public hearing and continues to voice her displeasure with locating the facility in what she describes as a “farming community.”

“Right now it’s just a cornfield,” she said of the site. “I have nothing against the Muslim religion. It’s not that at all. It’s having the facility directly across the road from my property, from my driveway. I’m going to be impacted the most. There’s going to be a constant flow of traffic … it’s going to affect the quality of my life and significantly alter the landscape here. It’s all farmland here.”

The special use permit was approved providing the proposed religious facility, which would be Midland County’s first mosque, meets all criteria the Lincoln Township Planning Commission requires throughout the site plan approval process.

Khaled Khan, president of the Islamic Society of Midland, expressed confidence that his group’s site plan will satisfy township zoning ordinances.

“We’re excited to finally be in a position to have our own center,” said Khan, whose group has been renting a variety of facilities over the past 10 years for religious and cultural activities. “A new center is one way we can give back to all those in the Midland community who have welcomed us and allowed us to use their places of worship to congregate.”

Sue Ensign, Lincoln Township Planning Commission chair, said the purpose of the site plan review meeting is to gather public input to help her board determine how the facility will be built.

About 45 Midland families are members of the local Islamic Society, Khan said.

Kemp, who owns 10 acres of land situated in between 10 acres her parents own north of her and 20 acres south, said the quiet, rural setting she and her neighbors enjoy is going to be lost if the mosque is built.

“I understand they have prayer services five times a day, every day,” Kemp said. “It’s not like we’re dealing with this once a week. Lighting is another concern. Hopefully the planning commission will at least minimize the amount of lighting they can use.”

Kemp wondered what the religious center would do to her property values.

“I don’t doubt that they will be good neighbors,” she said. “They’re nice people. But I’m not the only one objecting to it being built here because of how our quality of life is going to be affected.”